WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign is seizing on a Donald Trump ally’s racist comments about Puerto Ricans this weekend to launch a digital ad targeting Latino voters that argues they “deserve better” than what the former president has to offer.
Comedian Tony Hinchcliffe made crude jokes about Latinos and called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage” during the pre-program at Trump’s rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The 30-second spot will run online in battleground states on platforms like YouTube TV, Hulu and Snapchat, where Latinos consume a lot of their media, according to a Harris campaign official who first shared the details with NBC News.
Pennsylvania alone is home to more than 450,000 Puerto Ricans, according to census data, with more than 300,000 eligible voters, according to the Latino Data Hub at UCLA.
Beyond Pennsylvania, there are sizable Puerto Rican populations in North Carolina, Wisconsin and Michigan, as well, where the race could be determined by mere margins.
In addition to the ad, the Harris official said the campaign will also place digital ads in El Nuevo Dia, the most popular newspaper in Puerto Rico, through Election Day. They will include a GIF that says in Spanish: “Focus on your family in the States. One voice, one vote.”
The new Harris campaign video starts out with the comedian’s own words before turning to Trump saying “Puerto Rico” and then ending on Harris’ comments about how Trump responded when Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017.
“I will never forget what Donald Trump did. He abandoned the island and offered nothing more than paper towels and insults,” Harris says, taken from a message her campaign had released Sunday as she was courting Puerto Rican voters in Pennsylvania, well before the Trump rally.
“As president, I will always fight for you and your families, and together, we can chart a new way forward,” the ad concludes.
The Trump campaign tried to distance itself from the remarks, and some high-profile Republicans quickly rebuked them.
Before Trump's event, Harris had rolled out her economic proposals for the Puerto Rican community at stops in Philadelphia, including at a Puerto Rican restaurant.
Her agenda, if she is elected, includes launching an “opportunity economy” for Puerto Ricans, including building a resilient energy grid by cutting bureaucratic red tape that has slowed projects in recent years.
The Harris campaign posted a video summarizing the policy, which Puerto Rican superstars like Bad Bunny, Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Luis Fonsi later shared on Instagram.
Some had already backed Harris, but her aides hope their decision to amplify her message during this moment has a large ripple affect with their massive followings. Taken together, the four musicians have more than 300 million Instagram followers.
